Senate phones crash, plus the picture of the day

Many Senate office phones were down Thursday morning due to a “modest increase in call volume,” according to an e-mail from the Senate assistant sergeant at arms and the chief information officer.

Opponents of the bipartisan immigration reform bill that stalled in the Senate after a 46-53 cloture vote this morning said foes of the bill had flooded Senate offices with phone calls.

“The Verizon telephone switch[board] serving the Senate is experiencing problems that are being exacerbated by this morning’s modest increase in call volume,” says the e-mail, which was sent at 9:45 a.m.

Verizon is attempting to resolve problems and the voicemail system has been temporarily disconnected from the telephone switchboard.

“Calls will still go to the voice mail system, but callers will receive the generic voice mail greeting (‘You have reached the United States Senate voice messaging service …’) rather than the voice mail greeting of the person or office being called,” the notice continued.

It is unknown when the telephones and voicemail service will be up and running again.Senate Sergeant at Arms Terrance Gainer could not be reached for comment.

Yet, a good number of Senators — even with so many calls saying they don’t support this bill — still don’t get it. Hopefully this thing will die for good now.